“
War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, #2))
“
I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, #2))
“
Sonnet XVII
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way than this:
where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
”
”
Pablo Neruda
“
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd!
”
”
William Shakespeare (Hamlet)
“
Your children are not your children.
They are sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For thir souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the make upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness.
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He also loves the bow that is stable.
”
”
Kahlil Gibran
“
The moment you fall in love feels like it has centuries behind it, generations - all of them rearranging themselves so this precise, remarkable intersection could happen. In your heart, in your bones, no matter how silly you know it is, you feel that everything has been leading to this, all the secret arrows were pointing here, the universe and time itself crafted this long ago, and you are just now realizing it, you are just now arriving at the place you were always meant to be.
”
”
David Levithan (Every Day (Every Day, #1))
“
What a man wants is a mate and what a woman wants is infinite security,’ and, ‘What a man is is an arrow into the future and a what a woman is is the place the arrow shoots off from.
”
”
Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar)
“
Beauty's Curse
Her bow is drawn to worlds of dark,
where arrows spring and miss their mark—
she'll turn their heads but not their hearts.
”
”
Lang Leav (Love & Misadventure)
“
I don’t love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
”
”
Pablo Neruda (100 Love Sonnets)
“
That was the moment I knew I loved you, he had said. When that arrow went through your heart, and it might as well have gone through mine.
”
”
Alex Aster (Lightlark (Lightlark, #1))
“
His blue-black hair fell over his face when he moved, like tiny arrows pointing to pronounced cheeckbones. "Starting to think you were going to bail on me." "Didn't know you were expecting me," she said in what she hoped was a casual voice. He gets sexier every day. "Not Expecting, but hoping. Always hoping
”
”
Melissa Marr (Wicked Lovely (Wicked Lovely, #1))
“
The brain may take advice, but not the heart, and love, having no geography, knows no boundaries: weight and sink it deep, no matter, it will rise and find the surface: and why not? any love is natural and beautiful that lies within a person's nature; only hypocrites would hold a man responsible for what he loves, emotional illiterates and those of righteous envy, who, in their agitated concern, mistake so frequently the arrow pointing to heaven for the one that leads to hell.
”
”
Truman Capote (Other Voices, Other Rooms)
“
What is it about the moment you fall in love? How can such a small measure of time contain such enormity? I suddenly realize why people believe in déjà vu, why people believe they've lived past lives, because there is no way the years I've spent on this earth could possibly encapsulate what I'm feeling. The moment you fall in love feels like it has centuries behind it, generations—all of them rearranging themselves so that this precise, remarkable intersection could happen. In you heart, in your bones, no matter how silly you know it is, you feel that everything has been leading to this, all the secret arrows were pointing here, the universe and time itself crafted this long ago, and you are just now realizing it, you are now just arriving at the place you were always meant to be.
”
”
David Levithan (Every Day (Every Day, #1))
“
If blue is dream
what then innocence?
What awaits the heart
if Love bears no arrows?
”
”
Federico García Lorca
“
They looked like a pair of cupids who had decided they liked shooting people with real arrows better. They were horrible. I loved them so much.
”
”
Margaret Rogerson (An Enchantment of Ravens)
“
If that happens again someone's gonna get shot.... with an arrow of love!
”
”
Emilie Autumn
“
Through an arrow loop in the wall she saw a familiar horse and rider tearing across the camp toward the healing rooms. Brigan pulled up at Nash's feet and dropped from the saddle. The two brothers threw their arms around each other and embraced hard.
Shortly thereafter he stepped into the healing rooms and leaned in the doorway, looking across at her quietly. Brocker's son with the gentle gray eyes.
She abandoned all pretense of decorum and ran at him.
”
”
Kristin Cashore (Fire (Graceling Realm, #2))
“
Before you marry, you have to get shot by an arrow and fall in love,” the boy explained. He paused thoughtfully. “But I don’t think the rest of it hurts as much as the beginning.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Love in the Afternoon (The Hathaways, #5))
“
Often we take personally the slings and arrows of our 'abusers'. But frequently we are merely the interchangeable pawns of their own neurotic dramas. Anyone else in your position would have received the same treatment. There is nothing especially noxious or negatively noteworthy about you.
”
”
Brian L. Weiss (Messages from the Masters: Tapping into the Power of Love)
“
Well, in that hit you miss. She'll not be hit
With Cupid's arrow. She hath Dian's wit,
And, in strong proff of chastity well armed,
From Love's weak childish bow she lives uncharmed.
She will not stay the siege of loving terms,
Nor bide th' encounter of assailing eyes,
Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold.
O, she is rich in beauty; only poor
That, when she dies, with dies her store.
Act 1,Scene 1, lines 180-197
”
”
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
“
ONCE UPON A time, there was a king who had three beautiful daughters. He loved each of them dearly. One day, when the young ladies were of age to be married, a terrible, three-headed dragon laid siege to the kingdom, burning villages with fiery breath. It spoiled crops and burned churches. It killed babies, old people, and everyone in between.
The king promised a princess’s hand in marriage to whoever slayed the dragon. Heroes and warriors came in suits of armor, riding brave horses and bearing swords and arrows.
One by one, these men were slaughtered and eaten.
Finally the king reasoned that a maiden might melt the dragon’s heart and succeed where warriors had failed. He sent his eldest daughter to beg the dragon for mercy, but the dragon listened to not a word of her pleas. It swallowed her whole.
Then the king sent his second daughter to beg the dragon for mercy, but the dragon did the same. Swallowed her before she could get a word out.
The king then sent his youngest daughter to beg the dragon for mercy, and she was so lovely and clever that he was sure she would succeed where the others had perished.
No indeed. The dragon simply ate her.
The king was left aching with regret. He was now alone in the world.
Now, let me ask you this. Who killed the girls?
The dragon? Or their father?
”
”
E. Lockhart (We Were Liars)
“
This will mark the third time that an arrow has entered my chest. The first time brought me to Marianne Engel. The second time separated us.
The third time will reunite us.
”
”
Andrew Davidson (The Gargoyle)
“
My child, I know you're not a child
But I still see you running wild
Between those flowering trees.
Your sparkling dreams, your silver laugh
Your wishes to the stars above
Are just my memories.
And in your eyes the ocean
And in your eyes the sea
The waters frozen over
With your longing to be free.
Yesterday you'd awoken
To a world incredibly old.
This is the age you are broken
Or turned into gold.
You had to kill this child, I know.
To break the arrows and the bow
To shed your skin and change.
The trees are flowering no more
There's blood upon the tiles floor
This place is dark and strange.
I see you standing in the storm
Holding the curse of youth
Each of you with your story
Each of you with your truth.
Some words will never be spoken
Some stories will never be told.
This is the age you are broken
Or turned into gold.
I didn't say the world was good.
I hoped by now you understood
Why I could never lie.
I didn't promise you a thing.
Don't ask my wintervoice for spring
Just spread your wings and fly.
Though in the hidden garden
Down by the green green lane
The plant of love grows next to
The tree of hate and pain.
So take my tears as a token.
They'll keep you warm in the cold.
This is the age you are broken
Or turned into gold.
You've lived too long among us
To leave without a trace
You've lived too short to understand
A thing about this place.
Some of you just sit there smoking
And some are already sold.
This is the age you are broken
Or turned into gold.
This is the age you are broken or turned into gold.
”
”
Antonia Michaelis (The Storyteller)
“
Lia aimed, shifted and waited, watching one man peek out time and time again. She let her arrow fly anticipating his next peek at us and it pierced his eye.
“Okay that’s just going to make ’em mad ” I said.
“Three hundred and ninety-two ” she said to Luca tossing her braid over her shoulder and taking aim again.
“Saints in heaven ” he said to me rolling his eyes “how much deeper in love can I yet fall?
”
”
Lisa Tawn Bergren (Cascade (River of Time, #2))
“
Maggie scoffed. "Denial will not save you when Cupid's arrow find its mark."
"If i see Cupid anywhere in the vicinity, I'm ripping his chubby little arms off." Vanda yanked the door open to Romatech.
”
”
Kerrelyn Sparks (Forbidden Nights with a Vampire (Love at Stake, #7))
“
Isn’t it time that these most ancient sorrows of ours
grew fruitful? Time that we tenderly loosed ourselves
from the loved one, and, unsteadily, survived:
the way the arrow, suddenly all vector, survives the string
to be more than itself. For abiding is nowhere.
”
”
Rainer Maria Rilke (Duino Elegies)
“
I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as one loves certain obscure things,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries
the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,
and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose
from the earth lives dimly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you directly without problems or pride:
I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,
except in this form in which I am not nor are you,
so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,
so close that your eyes close with my dreams.
”
”
Pablo Neruda (100 Love Sonnets)
“
She's everything I want: the key to my lock, the arrow to my bow - oh, and ten thousand other such pathetic poetic tropes, none of which comes close to describing what she means to me.
”
”
Eve Edwards (The Other Countess (The Lacey Chronicles, #1))
“
Looking for Your Face
From the beginning of my life
I have been looking for your face
but today I have seen it
Today I have seen
the charm, the beauty,
the unfathomable grace
of the face
that I was looking for
Today I have found you
and those who laughed
and scorned me yesterday
are sorry that they were not looking
as I did
I am bewildered by the magnificence
of your beauty
and wish to see you
with a hundred eyes
My heart has burned with passion
and has searched forever
for this wondrous beauty
that I now behold
I am ashamed
to call this love human
and afraid of God
to call it divine
Your fragrant breath
like the morning breeze
has come to the stillness of the garden
You have breathed new life into me
I have become your sunshine
and also your shadow
My soul is screaming in ecstasy
Every fiber of my being
is in love with you
Your effulgence
has lit a fire in my heart
and you have made radiant
for me
the earth and sky
My arrow of love
has arrived at the target
I am in the house of mercy
and my heart
is a place of prayer
”
”
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi (The Love Poems of Rumi)
“
Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman--a rope over an abyss.
A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous trembling and halting.
What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what is lovable in man is that he is an OVER-GOING and a DOWN-GOING.
I love those that know not how to live except as down-goers, for they are the over-goers.
I love the great despisers, because they are the great adorers, and arrows of longing for the other shore.
I love those who do not first seek a reason beyond the stars for going down and being sacrifices, but sacrifice themselves to the earth, that the earth of the Superman may hereafter arrive.
I love him who lives in order to know, and seeks to know in order that the Superman may hereafter live. Thus seeks he his own down-going.
I love him who labors and invents, that he may build the house for the Superman, and prepare for him earth, animal, and plant: for thus seeks he his own down-going.
I love him who loves his virtue: for virtue is the will to down-going, and an arrow of longing.
I love him who reserves no share of spirit for himself, but wants to be wholly the spirit of his virtue: thus walks he as spirit over the bridge.
I love him who makes his virtue his inclination and destiny: thus, for the sake of his virtue, he is willing to live on, or live no more.
I love him who desires not too many virtues. One virtue is more of a virtue than two, because it is more of a knot for one's destiny to cling to.
I love him whose soul is lavish, who wants no thanks and does not give back: for he always bestows, and desires not to keep for himself.
I love him who is ashamed when the dice fall in his favor, and who then asks: "Am I a dishonest player?"--for he is willing to succumb.
I love him who scatters golden words in advance of his deeds, and always does more than he promises: for he seeks his own down-going.
I love him who justifies the future ones, and redeems the past ones: for he is willing to succumb through the present ones.
I love him who chastens his God, because he loves his God: for he must succumb through the wrath of his God.
I love him whose soul is deep even in the wounding, and may succumb through a small matter: thus goes he willingly over the bridge.
I love him whose soul is so overfull that he forgets himself, and all things that are in him: thus all things become his down-going.
I love him who is of a free spirit and a free heart: thus is his head only the bowels of his heart; his heart, however, causes his down-going.
I love all who are like heavy drops falling one by one out of the dark cloud that lowers over man: they herald the coming of the lightning, and succumb as heralds.
Lo, I am a herald of the lightning, and a heavy drop out of the cloud: the lightning, however, is the SUPERMAN.--
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (Thus Spoke Zarathustra)
“
Love is like a buffalo with butterfly wings, and I’m just the humble man in the jetpack trying to shoot it down with a bow and arrow.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (99 Cents For Some Nonsense)
“
Any love is natural and beautiful that lies within a person’s nature; only hypocrites would hold a man responsible for what he loves, emotional illiterates and those of righteous envy, who, in their agitated concern, mistake so frequently the arrow pointing to heaven for the one that leads to hell.
”
”
Truman Capote (Other Voices, Other Rooms)
“
I wanted to write “stay”
on your sides, surround
your bed with oceans
of salt.
I hope he folds you
into a fox, loves you
like a splintered arrow,
brandishes the kill
of your lips.
May the bouquet
of your hips wither.
May the wolves
forget your name.
”
”
J. Bradley
“
I longed to return to that bloody riverbank, to throw myself in the path of the final arrow, to die ignorant, and so, in love. Better to be killed by an arrow than by the words of the one I most trusted.
”
”
Robin Wasserman (The Book of Blood and Shadow)
“
War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend: the city of the Men of Númenor, and I would have her loved for her memory, her ancientry, her beauty, and her present wisdom. Not feared, save as men may fear the dignity of a man, old and wise.
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, #2))
“
Love transcended loss long enough for them to find that the depth of feeling is best known in silence, because in the presence of such love words are never quite enough.
”
”
Rita Leganski (The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow)
“
And when they spy on us let them discover us loving
”
”
Alice Walker (Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart)
“
Against the tide of violence
something spoken from the silence
like an arrow parting air
with the sharpened point of love.
”
”
Don Hynes (Something Will Change Me: Poems of Soul and Spirit)
“
With good reason, love's messengers, Eros and Kama, are armed with bows and long-distance arrows. No being, god or mortal, can choose love. Love comes despite ourselves; and then, if we have not already done so, we have the task of becoming our selves so we may welcome love.
”
”
Diane Wolkstein (The First Love Stories: From Isis and Osiris to Tristan and Iseult)
“
Maybe love will be like driving. When people move—when they travel—they look where they’ve come from, not where they’re going.
”
”
Martin Amis (Time's Arrow)
“
But my heart is always propped up in a field on its tripod, ready for the next arrow.
”
”
Billy Collins (Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems)
“
Cupid's not the only one with an arrow," I scowled
”
”
Ellen Schreiber (Love Bites (Vampire Kisses, #7))
“
Isn’t it time that, loving, we freed ourselves
from the beloved, and, trembling, endured:
as the arrow endures the bow, so as to be,
in its flight, something more than itself?
”
”
Rainer Maria Rilke (Duino Elegies)
“
Women. You'll interpret anything as love. You see a man wearing an idiotic expression, and you assume he's been struck by Cupid's arrow when in reality, he's digesting a bad turnip.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Married by Morning (The Hathaways, #4))
“
Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs,
you look like a world, lying in surrender.
My rough peasant's body digs in you
and makes the son leap from the depth of the earth.
I was lone like a tunnel. The birds fled from me,
and nigh swamped me with its crushing invasion.
To survive myself I forged you like a weapon,
like an arrow in my bow, a stone in my sling.
But the hour of vengeance falls, and I love you.
Body of skin, of moss, of eager and firm milk.
Oh the goblets of the breast! Oh the eyes of absence!
Oh the roses of the pubis! Oh your voice, slow and sad!
Body of my woman, I will persist in your grace.
My thirst, my boundless desire, my shifting road!
Dark river-beds where the eternal thirst flows
and weariness follows, and the infinite ache.
”
”
Pablo Neruda (Selected Poems)
“
I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving
but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.
”
”
Pablo Neruda
“
For a moment Ethan simply stares. Before him is the monster of his nightmares: his sister's murderer, the beast who robbed him of his greatest love. How easy, how fulfilling would it be to take Marduk's life? But the arrow in Ethan's fingers slips to the ground.
"No. even revenge is too great an honor for you."
As the night falls and brings an end to this long day of darkness, Marduk inhales his last staggered breath and his body turns to stone.
”
”
Marianne Curley (The Key (Guardians of Time, #3))
“
That hallmark image of cupid as a fat cherub with arrows? I think the real cupid is some kind of psycho juvie with a taser.
”
”
Lesley Livingston (Starling (Starling, #1))
“
Darker and darker, he said; farther and farther yet. Death takes the good, the beautiful, and the young - and spares me. The Pestilence that wastes, the Arrow that strikes, the Sea that drowns, the Grave the closes over Love and Hope, are steps of my journey, and take me nearer and nearer to the End.
”
”
Wilkie Collins (The Woman in White)
“
It's true: Everyone needs a reason to stay alive -- someone who justifies your existence. Someone who loves you. Not beyond all reason. Just loves you. Even just shows an interest. Even someone who doesn't exist, or isn't yours. No, no! They don't even have to love you! They just have to be there to love! Target for your arrows. Magnetic Pole to drag on your compass needle and stop it spinning and tell you where you're heading and...Someone to soak up all the yearning. That's what I think.
”
”
Geraldine McCaughrean (The White Darkness)
“
but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend: the city of the Men of Númenor; and I would have her loved for her memory, her ancientry, her beauty, and her present wisdom. Not feared, save as men may fear the dignity of a man, old and wise.
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings)
“
Let’s live suddenly without thinking.
Let’s live like the light that kills.
And let’s as silence,
because Whirl’s after all:
(after me) love, and after you.
I occasionally feel vague how
vague I don’t know tenuous Now -
spears and The Then - arrows making do
our mouths, something red, something tall.
”
”
E.E. Cummings
“
I could love means I could die violently, or live violently; the threat of the arrow is everywhere at once, not just in the heart.
”
”
Karen Green (Bough Down)
“
I kiss my darling then.
And my darling kisses his sweetheart.
”
”
Saffron A. Kent (My Darling Arrow (St. Mary’s Rebels, #1))
“
From up here she would do the most extraordinary thing she was capable of: She would love.
”
”
Emily X.R. Pan (An Arrow to the Moon)
“
Eros aimed one of his arrows at Medea, and drove it into her heart, up to the feathers.
”
”
Robert Graves
“
L'union libre [Freedom of Love]"
My wife with the hair of a wood fire
With the thoughts of heat lightning
With the waist of an hourglass
With the waist of an otter in the teeth of a tiger
My wife with the lips of a cockade and of a bunch of stars of the last magnitude
With the teeth of tracks of white mice on the white earth
With the tongue of rubbed amber and glass
My wife with the tongue of a stabbed host
With the tongue of a doll that opens and closes its eyes
With the tongue of an unbelievable stone
My wife with the eyelashes of strokes of a child's writing
With brows of the edge of a swallow's nest
My wife with the brow of slates of a hothouse roof
And of steam on the panes
My wife with shoulders of champagne
And of a fountain with dolphin-heads beneath the ice
My wife with wrists of matches
My wife with fingers of luck and ace of hearts
With fingers of mown hay
My wife with armpits of marten and of beechnut
And of Midsummer Night
Of privet and of an angelfish nest
With arms of seafoam and of riverlocks
And of a mingling of the wheat and the mill
My wife with legs of flares
With the movements of clockwork and despair
My wife with calves of eldertree pith
My wife with feet of initials
With feet of rings of keys and Java sparrows drinking
My wife with a neck of unpearled barley
My wife with a throat of the valley of gold
Of a tryst in the very bed of the torrent
With breasts of night
My wife with breasts of a marine molehill
My wife with breasts of the ruby's crucible
With breasts of the rose's spectre beneath the dew
My wife with the belly of an unfolding of the fan of days
With the belly of a gigantic claw
My wife with the back of a bird fleeing vertically
With a back of quicksilver
With a back of light
With a nape of rolled stone and wet chalk
And of the drop of a glass where one has just been drinking
My wife with hips of a skiff
With hips of a chandelier and of arrow-feathers
And of shafts of white peacock plumes
Of an insensible pendulum
My wife with buttocks of sandstone and asbestos
My wife with buttocks of swans' backs
My wife with buttocks of spring
With the sex of an iris
My wife with the sex of a mining-placer and of a platypus
My wife with a sex of seaweed and ancient sweetmeat
My wife with a sex of mirror
My wife with eyes full of tears
With eyes of purple panoply and of a magnetic needle
My wife with savanna eyes
My wife with eyes of water to he drunk in prison
My wife with eyes of wood always under the axe
My wife with eyes of water-level of level of air earth and fire
”
”
André Breton (Poems of André Breton: A Bilingual Anthology)
“
For a hundred generations, I had walked the world drowsy and dull, idle and at my ease. I left no prints, I did no deeds. Even those who had loved me a little did not care to stay.
Then I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. I would have done that toil a thousand times to keep such a power in my hands. I thought: this is how Zeus felt when he first lifted the thunderbolt.
”
”
Madeline Miller (Circe)
“
My existence shrank from an arrow of light pointing into the future forever to a speck of light that was the present moment. I got better at living in that point of light, making the world into that point. I paid close attention to it. I loved it very much.
”
”
Sarah Manguso (The Two Kinds of Decay)
“
Falling in love can be likened to someone, falling from a high building. The possible result will be unconsciousness if not death. Take it that, anybody that falls in love is either unconscious or dead.
”
”
Michael Bassey Johnson
“
Sartaq said to her, clear and steady, “I heard the spies’ stories of you. The fearless Balruhni woman in Adarlan’s empire. Neith’s Arrow. And I knew …” Nesryn sobbed, tugging and tugging. Sartaq smiled at her—gently. Sweetly. In a way she had not yet seen. “I loved you before I ever set eyes on you,” he said. “Please,” Nesryn wept. Sartaq’s hand tightened on hers. “I wish we’d had time.” A hiss behind him, a rising bulk of shining black— Then the prince was gone. Ripped from her hands. As if he had never been.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (Tower of Dawn (Throne of Glass, #6))
“
And then I wondered if as soon as he came to like me he would sink into
ordinariness, and if as soon as he came to love me I would find fault after fault, the way I did with Buddy Willard and the boys before him.
The same thing happened over and over:
I would catch sight of some flawless man off in the distance, but as soon as he moved closer I immediately saw he wouldn't do at all.
That's one of the reasons I never wanted to get married. The last thing I wanted was infinite security and to be the place an arrow shoots off from. I wanted change and excitement and to shoot off in all directions myself, like the colored arrows from a Fourth of July rocket.
”
”
Sylvia Plath
“
I’ll tell you what love is. Love is walking up and down Archer Road in Gainesville, Florida and feeling like Cupid. Too bad the cops took issue with me hitch hiking with a bow and arrow.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (Love quotes for the ages. Specifically ages 18-81.)
“
I fell in love with him like dead leaves fall from the branch of a tree and rain falls from a swollen cloud. I fell in love with him like tears fall when you’re sad and like blood oozes out of your skin when you step on broken glass.
”
”
Saffron A. Kent (My Darling Arrow (St. Mary’s Rebels, #1))
“
She calls me 'bird boy' and Hawkeye every time she gets a chance. Last year she bought me a bow and arrow for my birthday and told me it was for when the Avengers were called into action.
”
”
Lila Felix (How It Rolls (Love and Skate, #2))
“
Venus of Eryx, from her mountain throne,
Saw Hades and clasped her swift-winged son, and said:
'Cupid, my child, my warrior, my power,
Take those sure shafts with which you conquer all,
And shoot your speedy arrows to the heart
Of the great god to whom the last lot fell
When the three realms were drawn. Your mastery
Subdues the gods of heaven and even Jove,
Subdues the ocean's deities and him,
Even him, who rules the ocean's deities.
Why should Hell lag behind? Why not there too
Extend your mother's empire and your own....?
Then Cupid, guided by his mother, opened
His quiver of all his thousand arrows
Selected one, the sharpest and the surest,
The arrow most obedient to the bow,
And bent the pliant horn against his knee
And shot the barbed shaft deep in Pluto's heart.
”
”
Ovid (Metamorphoses)
“
One fine moonlit night, Mortain and his Wild Hunt were riding through the countryside when they spied two maids more beautiful than any they had ever seen before. They were picking evening primrose, which only blooms in the moonlight.
“The two maids turned out to be Amourna and Arduinna, twin daughters of Dea Matrona. When Mortain saw the fair Amourna, he fell instantly in love, for she was not only beautiful but light of heart as well, and surely the god of death needs lightness in his world.
“But the two sisters could not be more different. Amourna was happy and giving, but her sister, Arduinna, was fierce, jealous, and suspicious, for such is the dual nature of love. Arduinna had a ferocious and protective nature and did not care for the way Mortain was looking at her beloved sister. To warn him, she drew her bow and let fly with one of her silver arrows. She never misses, and she didn’t miss then. The arrow pierced Mortain’s heart, but no one, not even a goddess, can kill the god of death.
“Mortain plucked the arrow from his chest and bowed to Arduinna. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘For reminding me that love never comes without cost
”
”
R.L. LaFevers (Grave Mercy (His Fair Assassin, #1))
“
Because when she failed, I saw how she might have succeeded. Arrows that continually glanced off from Mr. Rochester's breast and fell harmless at his feet, might, I knew, if shot by a surer hand, have quivered keen in his proud heart - have called love into his stern eye, and softness into his sardonic face, or better still, without weapons a silent conquest might have been won.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
“
Love? I wanted to go with him, to be on the stronger side, for him to spare me, like one who seeks shelter in the arms of the enemy to stay far from his arrows. It was different than love, I was finding out: I wanted him as a thirsty person desires water, without feelings, without even wanting to be happy.
”
”
Clarice Lispector (The Complete Stories)
“
We are the archers with the bows that spring our children forward. Life does not go backward, nor does it tarry in yesterday. It is not a circle, but an arrow. It flies forward with the great express of Love.
”
”
David Paul Kirkpatrick (The Address Of Happiness)
“
After centuries of promoting romance, Kordelia finally became the receiver to the very arrow of love, that she was once the archer to.
”
”
Kristina Stangl (Cupid's Serenade (Silverheart, #1))
“
People spoke of love as if it were an arrow. A thing that flew quick, and always found its mark.
”
”
Victoria Schwab (A Conjuring of Light (Shades of Magic, #3))
“
The god of love had shot all his arrows, but could never pierce his heart, till at length he put himself into the bow.
”
”
Henry Scougal (The Life of God in the Soul of Man)
“
Cupid's arrow is straight and sharp, never misses its mark, but it leaves one hell of an exit wound.
”
”
Dave Preston
“
Love, it came unbidden.
You couldn't help whom you fell in love with—cupid's arrows were ill aimed.
”
”
V.C. Andrews (Flowers in the Attic (Dollanganger, #1))
“
You’re every guy’s nightmare, Salem. Because you’re the girl with too much love inside you.
”
”
Saffron A. Kent (My Darling Arrow (St. Mary’s Rebels, #1))
“
The arrow increased without motion, then in a quick swirl the trout lipped a fly beneath the surface with that sort of gigantic delicacy of an elephant picking up a peanut.
”
”
William Faulkner (The Sound and the Fury)
“
Open the doors of your heart and they will come…
And for every cruel arrow,
Sweet caresses of delirium also
To nourish your soul.
”
”
Scott Hastie
“
Yet another sign that love turned the most level-headed of people into fools. It was enough to make a man want to hunt Cupid down and string the bastard up using his own arrows.
”
”
Ana Huang (Twisted Lies (Twisted, #4))
“
Christopher felt a smile -his first genuine smile in a long time- pulling at his lips. "Does Miss Hathaway have many suitors?"
"Oh, yes. But none of them want to marry her."
"Why is that, do you imagine?"
"They don't want to get shot," the child said, shrugging.
"Pardon?" Christopher's brows lifted.
"Before you marry, you have to get shot by an arrow and fall in love," the boy explained.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Love in the Afternoon (The Hathaways, #5))
“
So play. Learn. Grow up. Follow your passions. Find someone to love. Do your best. Be kind when you can, tough when you need to be. Hold on to your friends. Don’t go against the direction of the painted arrows in the floor. You’ll be just fine.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (Things My Son Needs to Know about the World)
“
I wanted to write “stay”
on your sides, surround
your bed with oceans
of salt. I hope he folds you
into a fox, loves you
like a splintered arrow,
brandishes the kill
of your lips. May the bouquet
of your hips wither.
May the wolves
forget your name.
”
”
J. Bradley
“
Thus not the tenderness of friendship, nor the beauty of earth, nor of heaven, could redeem my soul from woe: the very accents of love were ineffectual. I was encompassed by a cloud which no benefical influence could penetrate. The wounded deer dragging its fainting limbs to some untrodden brake, there to gaze upon the arrow which had pierced it, and to die - was but a type of me.
”
”
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Frankenstein)
“
There's a beautiful sound you hear
When you learn to drown out the noise and chatter from other people
It is you, the sound of your truth
Your heart, your voice
Untouchable and loud with love
”
”
Christine Evangelou (Exit Point: Arrows From a Rebel Heart)
“
The god of Delos, proud in victory,
Saw Cupid draw his bow's taut arc, and said:
'Mischievous boy, what are a brave man's arms
To you? That gear becomes my shoulders best.
My aim is sure; I wound my enemies,
I wound wild beasts; my countless arrows slew
But now the bloated Python, whose vast coils
Across so many acres spread their blight.
You and your loves! You have your torch to light them!Let that content you; never claim my fame!'
And Venus' son replied: 'Your bow, Apollo,
May vanquish all, but mine shall vanquish you.
As every creature yields to power divine,
So likewise shall your glory yield to mine.
”
”
Ovid (Metamorphoses)
“
He bends over me, curls his sleek, cut body all around me, making himself my world. Flicking his eyes all over my face, he whispers, “Dark curls; Golden eyes.” He rubs our noses together. “Thirteen freckles; Flowers between her thighs.” He skims his lips over mine. “Sweet; So sweet; My heart; My sweetheart.
”
”
Saffron A. Kent (My Darling Arrow (St. Mary’s Rebels, #1))
“
let’s live suddenly without thinking
under honest trees,
a stream
does.the brain of cleverly-crinkling
-water pursues the angry dream
of the shore. By midnight,
a moon
scratches the skin of the organised hills
an edged nothing begins to prune
let’s live like the light that kills
and let’s as silence,
because Whirl’s after all:
(after me)love,and after you.
I occasionally feel vague how
vague idon’t know tenuous Now-
spears and The Then-arrows making do
our mouths something red,something tall
”
”
E.E. Cummings
“
It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on Earth has ever produced the expression "as pretty as an airport". Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort. This ugliness arises because airports are full of people who are tired, cross, and have just discovered that their luggage has landed in Murmansk (...) and the architects have on the whole tried to reflect this in their designs.
They have sought to highlight the tiredness and crossness motif with brutal shapes and nerve jangling colours, to make effortless the business of separating the traveller from his or her luggage or loved ones, to confuse the traveller with arrows that appear to point at the windows, distant tie racks, or the current position of the Ursa Minor in the night sky, and wherever possible to expose the plumbing on the grounds that it is functional, and conceal the location of the departure gates, presumably on the grounds that they are not".
”
”
Douglas Adams (The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (Dirk Gently, #2))
“
Isn't it time that, in love, we freed ourselves
from the loved one and, trembling, endured:
as the arrow endures the string, collecting itself
to be more than itself as it shoots?
”
”
Rainer Maria Rilke (Duino Elegies)
“
All bowmen are caught between heaven and earth, born to discovery, choosing to love and raise their eyes high to a future that is apparent only through the strength of their hope.
”
”
David Paul Kirkpatrick (The Address Of Happiness)
“
Love goes by haps, Some cupid kills with arrows, Some with traps
”
”
Much Ado About Nothing
“
The arrows of love, like Achilles' sword, carry with them the remedy for the wounds they cause.
”
”
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos (Les liaisons dangereuses)
“
just because someone doesn’t love the same way as you doesn’t mean they love you any less.
”
”
Sav R. Miller (Arrows and Apologies (Monsters & Muses, #4))
“
I’ve loved you since the second you walked into my life, and I’ll love you every second after, until I have no more to love you with.
”
”
Sav R. Miller (Arrows and Apologies (Monsters & Muses, #4))
“
That was the moment I knew I loved you, he had said. When that arrow
went through your heart, and it might as well have gone through mine.
”
”
Alex Aster (Lightlark (Lightlark, #1))
“
When one's married for so long, always walking on four feet and always
breathing double breaths and thinking every thought twice through and
the time between the main things is packed double full with minor
details - then, sometimes, naturally, one yearns like an arrow for one
whole space thin as air. And you start up in the night, terrified by
your own breathing, which had just been going along as evenly without
you. But you don't rise up free - or even really as far as your knees
- not once. You strike a match. And there's one of you right there,
wrapped in flesh. Only then is it love.
”
”
Robert Musil (Die Schwärmer)
“
Is it a war we are fighting, a war against health, against life and love? My condition is a torn condition. Every day, the dispensing of existence. I see the face of suffering. Its face is fierce and distant and ancient.
There's probably a straightforward explanation for the impossible weariness I feel. A perfectly straightforward explanation. It is a mortal weariness. Maybe I'm tired of being human, if human is what I am. I'm tired of being human.
”
”
Martin Amis (Time's Arrow)
“
Some girls fall in love and a boy catches them. He waits for them at the bottom of the cliff with open arms. And then there are other girls. Girls like me. We’re the girls in love with the boys who belong to someone else. We’re the girls in doomed love. When girls like us fall, there’s no one to catch us. Least of all that boy for whom we’ve taken the fall.
”
”
Saffron A. Kent (My Darling Arrow (St. Mary’s Rebels, #1))
“
Behind us hung a Correggio St. Sebastian with the habitual Buchmanite expression on his face. "Awful tripe," said Uncle Matthew. "Fella wouldn't be grinning, he'd be dead with all those arrows in him.
”
”
Nancy Mitford (Love in a Cold Climate (Radlett & Montdore, #2))
“
The brain may take advice, but not the heart, and love, having no geography, knows no boundaries: weight and sink it deep, no matter, it will rise and find the surface: and why not? any love is natural and beautiful that lies within a person's nature; only hypocrites would hold a man responsible for what he loves, emotional illiterates and those of righteous envy, who, in their agitated concern, mistake so frequently the arrow pointing to heaven for the one that leads to hell.
”
”
Truman Capote (Other Voices, Other Rooms)
“
Her attention was on the first knight, pulling back his bowstring, taking aim. She paused, sensed the wind and revised her aim, then let the arrow fly.
I watched, as if in slow motion, as it shot across the space and split through the first knight's throat.
But Lia was not done. She was already on one knee, squinting and taking aim at the second as he turned, spotting us. She let the next arrow fly, and the arrow struck him in the chest, driving him backward over the parapet wall.
"Saints in heaven, I believe I'm in love," Luca growled, running past me, sword drawn.
”
”
Lisa Tawn Bergren
“
In a sudden inspiration, Florentino Ariza opened a can of red paint that was within reach of the bunk, wet his index finger, and painted the pubis of the beautiful pigeon fancier with an arrow of blood pointing south, and on her belly the words: This pussy is mine.
”
”
Gabriel García Márquez (Love in the Time of Cholera)
“
You shall leave everything you love most dearly:
this is the arrow that the bow of exile
shoots first.
”
”
Dante Alighieri (The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso)
“
Ah, Archer. We always hurt the ones we love."
"Why's that, do you think?"
"So that we know they love us too.
”
”
Nash Summers (Arrows Through Archer)
“
You don’t love guys like that. You get eaten up by them and you love every bite they take out of you.
”
”
Saffron A. Kent (My Darling Arrow (St. Mary’s Rebels, #1))
“
You’re the girl every guy runs away from. You’re every guy’s nightmare, Salem. Because you’re the girl with too much love inside you.
”
”
Saffron A. Kent (My Darling Arrow (St. Mary’s Rebels, #1))
“
God loves us not because we are lovable, but because He is love.
”
”
James Bryan Smith (Rich Mullins: An Arrow Pointing to Heaven)
“
I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness
Nor the arrow for its swiftness
Nor the warrior for his glory
I love only that which they defend
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien
“
After catching an arrow in the back and passing out in Tom the Feather’s barnyard, Hadrian had woken up on a comfortable bed surrounded by lovely women. He thought he’d died and regretted every time he’d ever cursed Maribor’s name.
”
”
Michael J. Sullivan (The Rose and the Thorn (The Riyria Chronicles, #2))
“
Settle your perfect hips here and the bow of wet arrows
loosens into the night the petals that form your form
let your clay limbs climb the silence and its pale ladder
rung by rung taking off with me in my dream.
I can sense you scaling the shade tree that sings to the
shadows.
Dark is the world’s night without you my love,
”
”
Pablo Neruda (Then Come Back: The Lost Neruda Poems)
“
As she was working out the calculations in her head, she forgot to really worry about all the physical things that were getting in the way--the balancing of the bow, the aiming, the fear she wasn't going to get it right--and suddenly it all just clicked. She felt it come into sudden, sharp focus, like a spotlight had suddenly focused on her, and she let go of the arrow. That instant, she knew it would hit the target. She let the bow rock gracefully forward on the balance point, watching the arrow, and it smacked into the exact center of her crudely drawn paper circle. Physics. She loved physics. Shane arrived just as she put the arrow into the center, and slowed down, staring from the target to Claire, standing straight and tall, bow still held loosely in one hand and ready to shoot again. "You look so hot right now," he said.
”
”
Rachel Caine (Kiss of Death (The Morganville Vampires, #8))
“
Einstein said the arrow of time flies in only one direction. Faulkner, being from Mississippi, understood the matter differently. He said the past is never dead; it's not even past. All of us labor in webs spun long before we were born, webs of heredity and environment, of desire and consequence, of history and eternity. Haunted by wrong turns and roads not taken, we pursue images perceived as new but whose provenance dates to the dim dramas of childhood, which are themselves but ripples of consequence echoing down the generations. The quotidian demands of life distract from this resonance of images and events, but some of us feel it always.
And who among us, offered the chance, would not relive the day or hour in which we first knew love, or ecstasy, or made a choice that forever altered our future, negating a life we might have had? Such chances are rarely granted. Memory and grief prove Faulkner right enough, but Einstein knew the finality of action. If I cannot change what I had for lunch yesterday, I certainly cannot unmake a marriage, erase the betrayal of a friend, or board a ship that left port twenty years ago.
”
”
Greg Iles (The Quiet Game (Penn Cage #1))
“
Our beauty unfolds, we become.
The ones that truly value you
And the pricelessness of your presence
Will stick around to watch the full beauty of the sunset
As they gaze through to your soul
And feel warmed by your charm
As you unfold, as you become
”
”
Christine Evangelou (Exit Point: Arrows From a Rebel Heart)
“
Paris and Helen
He called her: golden dawn
She called him: the wind whistles
He called her: heart of the sky
She called him: message bringer
He called her: mother of pearl
barley woman, rice provider,
millet basket, corn maid,
flax princess, all-maker, weef
She called him: fawn, roebuck,
stag, courage, thunderman,
all-in-green, mountain strider
keeper of forests, my-love-rides
He called her: the tree is
She called him: bird dancing
He called her: who stands,
has stood, will always stand
She called him: arriver
He called her: the heart and the womb
are similar
She called him: arrow in my heart.
”
”
Judy Grahn (The work of a common woman: The collected poetry of Judy Grahn, 1964-1977 ; with an introduction by Adrienne Rich)
“
No, we never sicken with love twice. Cupid spends no second arrow on the same heart. Love's handmaids are our life-long friends. Respect, and admiration, and affection, our doors may always be left open for, but their great celestial master, in his royal progress, pays but one visit and departs. We like, we cherish, we are very, very fond of--but we never love again.
”
”
Jerome K. Jerome (Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow)
“
How come love sounds so violent? You fall head over heels. You’re struck by Cupid’s arrow. You take the risk of having your heart broken. From an outside perspective, it sounds impossibly painful, not worth the trouble. And yet we do it every day. We keep coming back for more. Why? If it weren’t so perilous, maybe we wouldn’t crave it so much. Maybe it has to be brutal, in order to work. People come in so many shapes and sizes that it takes a bit of force in order to fit together perfectly. But you know what they say about a break that heals: it’s always stronger than before.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (Off the Page (Between the Lines, #2))
“
Cherubs are so creepy, don’t you think? Like, why are naked babies shooting poisonous arrows at innocent people a symbol of love? Why aren’t they a symbol of toddler anarchy instead?” “Roux,” I started to say, but then I paused, thinking about her comment. “That is an excellent point,” I admitted. “I blame Hallmark,” she said. “Damn them and their anarchist baby uprising.
”
”
Robin Benway (Going Rogue (Also Known As, #2))
“
I grin and ask him something I've always wanted to ask. "Why do you always stare at my nose?"
He glances at it for a second before whispering, "Because you've got freckles on it. Thirteen, to be exact. And seven under your eyes.
”
”
Saffron A. Kent (My Darling Arrow (St. Mary’s Rebels, #1))
“
She’ll not be hit
With Cupid’s arrow. She hath Dian’s wit,
And, in strong proof of chastity well armed,
From love’s weak, childish bow she lives uncharmed. She won't be assaulted by loving eyes, and she won't accept gifts of gold.
”
”
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
“
Abbie would stop in her work and utter a prayer for him,—and, sent as it were from the bow of a mother's watchful care, bound by the cord of a mother's love, the little winged arrow on its flight must have reached Some one,—Somewhere.
”
”
Bess Streeter Aldrich (A Lantern in Her Hand)
“
... Anyway, you put too much stock in hierarchy and fear.”
“Me?”
“Who else? I could spot it a mile away. All you cared about was your mission, whatever it is. You’re like a driven arrow with a very depressing shadow. First time I met you, I knew you’d cut my throat to get whatever it is you want.” She waits for a moment. “What is it that you want, by the way?”
“To win,” I say.
“Oh, please. You’re not that simple.”
“You think you know me?” The rabbit hisses out fat over the fire.
“I know you cry in your sleep for a girl named Eo. Sister? Or a girl you loved? It is a very offColor name. Like yours.”
“I’m a farplanet hayseed. Didn’t they tell you?”
“They wouldn’t tell me anything. I don’t get out much.” She waves a hand. “Anyway, doesn’t matter. All that matters is that no one trusts you because it’s obvious you care more about your goal than you do about them.”
“And you’re something different?”
“Oh, very much so, Sir Reaper. I like people more than you do. You are the wolf that howls and bites. I am the mustang that nuzzles the hand. People know they can work with me. With you? Hell, kill or be killed.
”
”
Pierce Brown (Red Rising (Red Rising Saga, #1))
“
had forgotten about the power of shadow-traveling—the way children of the Underworld could step into one shadow and appear from another, sometimes hundreds of miles away. Hades used to love sneaking up on me that way and yelling, “HI!” just as I shot an arrow of death. He found it amusing if I missed my target and accidentally wiped out the wrong city.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo, #1))
“
Cupid, that chubby cherub love dispenser, is dead. But before he died, he appointed me his apprentice in love.
I loved Cupid, and that was precisely why I killed him. I strangled him. Then I shot him 17 times with his heart-shaped arrows.
Then I burned his body while I roasted and toasted marshmallows and toasted to the good times he brought to the world.
Then I took his ashes and mixed them in cake batter and literally consumed him.
Mark it down: I have officially taken over as the foremost authority on love.
I can't fly around like he could, but I have other endearing qualities. I can’t think of any at the moment, but I must have some.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (Love quotes for the ages. Specifically ages 18-81.)
“
Be what they do not want:
Be thoughtful.
Be skilled at loving.
Be of good heart.
Be of the world tribe.
”
”
Alice Walker (Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart)
“
When your lover leaves .... Cupid is summoned to reclaim his arrow. And he must pull the barbed arrowhead out backwards through the raw flesh of your heart.
”
”
Kerry Cue (Forgotten Wisdom)
“
Fasten your belts and sharpen your arrows, we're going for a hunt! I'm single again!
”
”
Hamidreza Bagheri
“
She loves unconditionally and never fears,
for she is LOVE and knows no other way.
”
”
Dan Arrow
“
The moment you fall in love feels like it has centuries behind it, generations—all of them rearranging themselves so that this precise, remarkable intersection could happen. In your heart, in your bones, no matter how silly you know it is, you feel that everything has been leading to this, all the secret arrows were pointing here, the universe and time itself crafted this long ago, and you are just now realizing it, you are just now arriving at the place you were always meant to be.
”
”
David Levithan (Every Day (Every Day, #1))
“
Signs and wonders, eh? Pity if there is nothing wonderful in signs, and significant in wonders! There's a clue somewhere; wait a bit; hist--hark! By Jove, I have it! Look, you Doubloon, your zodiac here is the life of man in one round chapter; and now I'll read it off, straight out of the book. Come, Almanack! To begin: there's Aries, or the Ram--lecherous dog, he begets us; then, Taurus, or the Bull--he bumps us the first thing; then Gemini, or the Twins--that is, Virtue and Vice; we try to reach Virtue, when lo! comes Cancer the Crab, and drags us back; and here, going from Virtue, Leo, a roaring Lion, lies in the path--he gives a few fierce bites and surly dabs with his paw; we escape, and hail Virgo, the Virgin! that's our first love; we marry and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes Libra, or Scales--happiness weighed and found wanting; and while we are very sad about that, Lord! how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio, or the Scorpion, stings us in rear; we are curing the wound, when whang comes the arrows all round; Sagittarius, or the Archer, is amusing himself. As we pluck out the shafts, stand aside! here's the battering-ram, Capricornus, or the Goat; full tilt, he comes rushing and headlong we are tossed; when Aquarius, or the the Waterbearer, pours out his whole deluge and drowns us; and, to wind up, with Pisces, or the Fishes, we sleep. There's a sermon now, writ in high heaven, and the sun goes through it every year, and yet comes out of it all alive and hearty.
”
”
Herman Melville (Moby-Dick)
“
And around the time the moon and sun are coexisting in the sky, turning the room inside out with that eerie, yet calming pale glow, I have a terrible thought: I like him. I really, really like him. Like, love-like him. Like, with my metaphorical heart. Like, if I had an x-ray, it would show an arrow lodged right into the center of that bloody, bleeding mass of muscle in my chest. And I know, somehow, that things have changed between us.
”
”
Amber Smith (The Way I Used to Be (The Way I Used to Be, #1))
“
Gentle Mother, font of mercy,
save our sons from war, we pray,
stay the swords and stay the arrows,
let them know a better day,
Gentle Mother, strength of women,
help our daughters through this fray,
soothe the wrath and tame the fury,
teach us all a kinder way.<\I>
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2))
“
If I were being quite honest– which I probably wouldn’t be no matter what the circumstances entailed– he was almost exactly like the fantasy man I’d envisioned falling passionately in love with. The one I was currently trying to mentally murder in my psyche. That one.
”
”
Sarah K.L. Wilson (Fly with the Arrow (Bluebeard's Secret, #1))
“
I swear to thee by Cupid's strongest bow, By his best arrow, with the golden head, By the simplicity of Venus' doves, By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves, And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen, When the false Trojan under sail was seen,— By all the vows that ever men have broke, In number more than ever women spoke,—
”
”
William Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night's Dream)
“
Call themselves?" asked Yama. "You are wrong, Sam, Godhood is more than a name. It is a condition of being. One does not achieve it merely by being immortal, for even the lowliest laborer in the fields may achieve continuity of existence. Is it then the conditioning of an Aspect? No. Any competent hypnotist can play games with the self-image. Is it the raising up of an Attribute? Of course not. I can design machines more powerful and more accurate than any faculty a man may cultivate. Being a god is the quality of being able to be yourself to such an extent that your passions correspond with the forces of the universe, so that those who look upon you know this without hearing your name spoken. Some ancient poet said that the world is full of echoes and correspondences. Another wrote a long poem of an inferno, wherein each man suffered a torture which coincided in nature with those forces which had ruled his life. Being a god is being able to recognize within one's self these things that are important, and then to strike the single note that brings them into alignment with everything else that exists. Then, beyond morals or logic or esthetics, one is wind or fire, the sea, the mountains, rain, the sun or the stars, the flight of an arrow, the end of a day, the clasp of love. One rules through one's ruling passions. Those who look upon gods then say, without even knowing their names, 'He is Fire. She is Dance. He is Destruction. She is Love.' So, to reply to your statement, they do not call themselves gods. Everyone else does, though, everyone who beholds them."
"So they play that on their fascist banjos, eh?"
"You choose the wrong adjective."
"You've already used up all the others.
”
”
Roger Zelazny (Lord of Light)
“
Keith traced my face, traced my hands and traced my body as the crickets chirped a love song and I lost myself in his eyes that stroked my soul and punctured my heart, like a poison arrow in a shooting star
”
”
Aishabella Sheikh (Lavinia (Gift of Dreams #3))
“
Love discovered me all weaponless,
and opened the way to the heart through the eyes,
which are made the passageways and doors of tears:
so that it seems to me it does him little honour
to wound me with his arrow, in that state,
he not showing his bow at all to you who are armed
”
”
Francesco Petrarca
“
Now for St. Francis nothing was ever in the background. We might say that his mind had no background, except perhaps that divine darkness out of which the divine love had called up every colored creature one by one. He saw everything as dramatic, distinct from its setting, not all of a piece like a picture but in action like a play. A bird went by him like an arrow; something with a story and a purpose, though it was a purpose of life and not a purpose of death. A bush could stop him like a brigand; and indeed he was as ready to welcome the brigand as the bush.
”
”
G.K. Chesterton (St. Francis of Assisi)
“
Day upon patient day, you must throw out your errors and begin again. So why did I not mind? [...] For a hundred generations, I had walked the world drowsy and dull, idle and at my ease. I left no prints, I did no deeds. Even those who had loved me a little did not care to stay. Then I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow.
”
”
Madeline Miller (Circe)
“
People of Redwood Ridge always referred to themselves as victims when they were found in the path of Cupid’s arrow, wielded by the sisters. They ran. They hid. They resisted. In the end, they succumbed. He was the sheriff. He got around. He saw and heard things most didn’t. And the truth was, not a solitary “victim” was unhappy after The Battleaxes were through with them.
”
”
Kelly Moran (Under Pressure (Redwood Ridge, #5))
“
One, the search for the fang-free dragon taught me that fear and intimidation might not be the best way to train dragons.
"Two, the sword: that sometimes best is second-best.
"Three, the shield: that sometimes freedom must be fought for.
"Four, the ticking-thing: that when you fight for your friend, you are also fighting for yourself.
"Five, the ruby heart’s stone: that love never dies.
"Six, the arrow from the land-that-does-not-exist: that you must make things right in the Old World before you go looking for the New, and sometimes the things that you are looking for are right at home.
"Seven, the key-that-opens-all-locks: that accidents happen for a reason.
"Eight, the Throne: that power can corrupt.
"Nine, the Crown: that you have to keep on trying even though you are beaten before you even star.
"And Ten, the dragon Jewel," finished Hiccup. "You need to know what it is to be a slave, before you can be a King.
”
”
Cressida Cowell (How to Fight a Dragon’s Fury (How To Train Your Dragon, #12))
“
While we might say that we have fallen in love or developed a crush on someone unsuitable, the Greeks tended to externalize the causes of such experiences. We fall in love, they were struck by an arrow shot by the god Eros, for example. A sophisticated language of psychology simply didn’t exist at the time that Euripides was writing, so things which are internalized for us were often launched upon a Greek from without.
”
”
Natalie Haynes (Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths)
“
When would I learn the secret of happy, contented teamwork? Why did I always want to be the last link? If I would love the Lord with all my mind, I had to give Him all that I thought I knew or could do, and be willing for Him to place me anywhere within the team to do any job He chose for me. Only then would I exprience true peace of mind.
”
”
Helen Roseveare (Living Sacrifice: Willing to be Whittled as an Arrow)
“
My good Lysander!
I swear to thee by Cupid’s strongest bow,
By his best arrow with the golden head,
By the simplicity of Venus' doves,
By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,
And by that fire which burned the Carthage queen
When the false Troyan under sail was seen,
By all the vows that ever men have broke
In number more than ever women spoke,
In that same place thou hast appointed me,
Tomorrow truly will I meet with thee.
”
”
William Shakespeare (Shakespeare's a Midsummer Night's Dream: In the Original Modern English)
“
When a film's heroine innocently coughs, you know that two scenes later, at most, she'll be in an oxygen tent; when a man bumps into a woman at the train station, you know that man will become the woman's lover and/or murderer. In everyday life, where we cough often and are always bumping into people, our daily actions rarely reverberate so lucidly. Once we love or hate someone, we can think back and remember that first casual encounter. But what of all the chance meetings that nothing ever comes of? While our bodies move ever forward on the time line, our minds continuously trace backward, seeking shape and meaning as deftly as any arrow seeking its mark.
”
”
Lucy Grealy (Autobiography of a Face)
“
I know there are things I haven't survived
I know there are people in this world who have had to work really hard to survive me,
I don't ever want to take that lightly
But I want the heavy to anchor me brave, to anchor me loving, to anchor me in something that will absolutely hold me to my word
When I tell Cupid I intend to keep walking out to the tip of his arrow,
to bend it back towards myself,
to aim for my goodness; 'til the muscle in my chest tears from the stretch of becoming.
”
”
Andrea Gibson (Hey Galaxy)
“
Much to her dismay, Kordelia finally began to sympathize with her past love matches. So, these intense and troubling emotions are what it felt like to be on the receiving end of an arrow. Except this time, it backfired. Alas, cupid blindly shot a blank arrow up into the air and miraculously, it landed straight through her own heart! One way or another, fate cursed the great archer, herself!
”
”
Kristina Stangl (Cupid's Serenade (Silverheart, #1))
“
Occasionally someone or other got donked on the head by Cupid's arrow, and laughed, saying it's 'a definite sign', that 'it had to mean something'. One guy grabbed his girlfriend and lifted her up so that she was hit on the head by the arrow, and then said, 'There, now you've got no choice but to fall in love with me', and she laughed as he put her back down on the ground and kissed her mouth.
”
”
Gabrielle Williams (Beatle Meets Destiny)
“
Wild roved an Indian maid,
Bright Alfarata,
Where flow the waters
Of the blue Juniata.
Strong and true my arrows are
In my painted quiver,
Swift goes my light canoe
Adown the rapid river.
“Bold is my warrior good,
The love of Alfarata,
Proud wave his sunny plumes
Along the Juniata.
Soft and low he speaks to me,
And then his war-cry sounding
Rings his voice in thunder loud
From height to height resounding.
“So sang the Indian maid,
Bright Alfarata,
Where sweep the waters
Of the blue Juniata.
Fleeting years have borne away
The voice of Alfarata,
Still flow the waters
Of the blue Juniata.
”
”
Laura Ingalls Wilder (Little House on the Prairie (Little House, #3))
“
Sonnet XVII
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way than this:
where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
”
”
Pablo Neruda (Love Poems)
“
One, the search for the fang-free dragon taught me that fear and intimidation might not be the best way to train dragons. Two, the sword: that sometimes best is second-best. Three, the shield: that sometimes freedom must be fought for. Four, the ticking-thing: that when you fight for your friend, you are also fighting for yourself. Five, the ruby heart’s stone: that love never dies. Six, the arrow from the land-that-does-not-exist: that you must make things right in the Old World before you go looking for the New, and sometimes the things that you are looking for are right at home. Seven, the key-that-opens-all-locks: that accidents happen for a reason. Eight, the Throne: that power can corrupt. Nine, the Crown: that you have to keep on trying even though you are beaten before you even star. And Ten, the dragon Jewel," finished Hiccup. "You need to know what it is to be a slave, before you can be a King.
”
”
Cressida Cowell (How to Fight a Dragon’s Fury (How To Train Your Dragon, #12))
“
When trying to fathom an immense, intricate system, drawing direct arrows of causality between micro and macro-components is perilous. Which stock caused the crash of ’29? Which person triggered the outbreak of World War I? Which word of Poe’s “The Rave” suffuses it with an atmosphere of brooding melancholy?
”
”
Thomas Lewis (A General Theory of Love (Vintage))
“
To love the Lord my God with all my soul will involve a spiritual cost. I'll have to give Him my heart, and let Him love through it whom and how He wills, even if this seems at times to break my heart.
To love the Lord my God with all my soul will involve a volitional and emotional cost. I'll have to give Him my will, my rights to decide and choose, and all my relationships, for Him to guide and control, even when I cannot understand His reasoning.
To love the Lord my God with all my mind will involve an intellectual cost. I must give Him my mind, my intelligence, my reasoning powers, and trust Him to work through them, even when He may appear to act in contradiction to common sense.
To love the Lord my God with all my strength will involve a physical cost. I must give Him my body to indwell, and through which to speak, whether He chooses health or sickness, by strength or weakness, and trust Him utterly with the outcome.
”
”
Helen Roseveare (Living Sacrifice: Willing to be Whittled as an Arrow)
“
We were prime examples of the age old debate: nature versus nurture. I’d been brought up around muscle cars and crescent wrenches, and he’d been surrounded by neon lights and stilettos. In all likelihood, I should’ve been straight as an arrow, and Frank would’ve ended up as a showgirl. Yet, he was the top, if only in bed. We both knew who wore the pants in the relationship, even though they were big on me because they were his.
”
”
Nicole Castle (Chance Assassin: A Story of Love, Luck, and Murder (Chance Assassin, #1))
“
=The Burial of Love= His eyes in eclipse, Pale cold his lips, The light of his hopes unfed, Mute his tongue, His bow unstrung With the tears he hath shed, Backward drooping his graceful head. Love is dead; His last arrow sped; He hath not another dart; Go--carry him to his dark deathbed; Bury him in the cold, cold heart-- Love is dead.
”
”
Alfred Tennyson (The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson)
“
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the Archer’s hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
”
”
Kahlil Gibran (The Prophet)
“
The Landscape"
I dreamt of loving. The dream remains, but love
is no longer those lilacs and roses whose breath
filled the broad woods, where the sail of a flame
lay at the end of each arrow-straight path.
I dreamt of loving. The dream remains, but love
is no longer that storm whose white nerve sparked
the castle towers, or left the mind unrhymed,
or flared an instant, just where the road forked.
It is the star struck under my heel in the night.
It is the vvord no book on earth defines.
It is the foam on the wave, the cloud in the sky.
As they age, all things grow rigid and bright.
The streets fall nameless, and the knots untie.
Now, with this landscape, I fix; I shine.
”
”
Robert Desnos
“
Ah…” Favonius nodded sympathetically. “I don’t blame you for being nervous, Nico di Angelo. Do you know how I ended up serving Cupid?” “I don’t serve anyone,” Nico muttered. “Especially not Cupid.” Favonius continued as if he hadn’t heard. “I fell in love with a mortal named Hyacinthus. He was quite extraordinary.” “He…?” Jason’s brain was still fuzzy from his wind trip, so it took him a second to process that. “Oh…” “Yes, Jason Grace.” Favonius arched an eyebrow. “I fell in love with a dude. Does that shock you?” Honestly, Jason wasn’t sure. He tried not to think about the details of godly love lives, no matter who they fell in love with. After all, his dad, Jupiter, wasn’t exactly a model of good behavior. Compared to some of the Olympian love scandals he’d heard about, the West Wind falling in love with a mortal guy didn’t seem very shocking. “I guess not. So…Cupid struck you with his arrow, and you fell in love.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus, #4))
“
and when a leaf falls from the climbing vines, you know, my love, what name is written on that leaf, a name that is yours and mine, our love name, a single being, the arrow that pierced winter, the invincible love, the fire of the days, a leaf that dropped upon my breast, a leaf from the tree of life that made a nest and sang, that put out roots, that gave flowers and fruits. And so you see, my love, how I move around the island, around the world, safe in the midst of spring, crazy with light in the cold, walking tranquil in the fire, lifting your petal weight in my arms as if I had never walked except with you, my heart, as if I could not walk except with you, as if I could not sing except when you sing.
”
”
Pablo Neruda (Love Poems)
“
The moment you fall in love feels like it has centuries behind it, generations – all of them rearranging themselves so this precise, remarkable intersection could happen. In your heart, in your bones, no matter how silly you know it is, you feel that everything has been leading to this, all the secret arrows were pointing here, the universe and time itself crafted this long ago, and you are just now realizing it, you are just now arriving at the place you were always meant to be.
”
”
David Levithan (Every Day (Every Day, #1))
“
Wagons rattling and banging,
horses neighing and snorting,
conscripts marching, each with bow and arrows at his hip,
fathers and mothers, wives and children, running to see them off--
so much dust kicked up you can't see Xian-yang Bridge!
And the families pulling at their clothes, stamping feet in anger,
blocking the way and weeping--
ah, the sound of their wailing rises straight up to assault heaven.
And a passerby asks, "What's going on?"
The soldier says simply, "This happens all the time.
From age fifteen some are sent to guard the north,
and even at forty some work the army farms in the west.
When they leave home, the village headman has to wrap their turbans for them;
when they come back, white-haired, they're still guarding the frontier.
The frontier posts run with blood enough to fill an ocean,
and the war-loving Emperor's dreams of conquest have still not ended.
”
”
Du Fu
“
Thus not the tenderness of friendship, nor the beauty of earth, nor of heaven, could redeem my soul from woe: the very accents of love were ineffectual. I was encompassed by a cloud which no beneficial influence could penetrate. The wounded deer dragging its fainting limbs to some untrodden brake, there to gaze upon the arrow which had pierced it, and to die - was but a type of me.
”
”
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Frankenstein)
“
I know a charm that can cure pain and sickness, and lift the grief from the heart of the grieving.
I know a charm that will heal with a touch.
I know a charm that will turn aside the weapons of an enemy.
I know another charm to free myself from all bonds and locks.
A fifth charm: I can catch an arrow in flight and take no harm from it.
A sixth: spells sent to hurt me will hurt only the sender.
A seventh charm I know: I can quench a fire simply by looking at it.
An eighth: if any man hates me, I can win his friendship.
A ninth: I can sing the wind to sleep and calm a storm for long enough to bring a ship to shore.
For a tenth charm, I learned to dispel witches, to spin them around in the skies so that they will never find their way back to their own doors again.
An eleventh: if I sing it when a battle rages it can take warriors through the tumult unscathed and unhurt, and bring them safely back to their hearths and their homes.
A twelfth charm I know: if I see a hanged man I can bring him down from the gallows to whisper to us all he remembers.
A thirteenth: if I sprinkle water on a child’s head, that child will not fall in battle.
A fourteenth: I know the names of all the gods. Every damned one of them.
A fifteenth: I had a dream of power, of glory, and of wisdom, and I can make people believe in my dreams.
A sixteenth charm I know: if I need love I can turn the mind and heart of any woman.
A seventeenth, that no woman I want will ever want another.
And I know an eighteenth charm, and that charm is the greatest of all, and that charm I can tell to no man, for a secret that no one know but you is the most powerful secret there can ever be.
”
”
Neil Gaiman (American Gods: Tenth Anniversary (American Gods, #1))
“
When we experience a sad event it is natural to react to it with pain. The first arrow is the event. Our prolonged reactions to the event are the second arrows. It is natural to need time to recover. But we made it harder for ourselves when we second guess ourselves and feel guilty or ashamed. Instead we can work with and modify these emotions from the second arrow. We can have both the courage to accept our suffering and the skills to move beyond it. We can pardon ourselves and all those around us.
This may be the most important thing - that we learn to grant ourselves mercy. That we forgive ourselves, that we accept our pain, mistakes, and vulnerability, and somehow manage to love ourselves and our own lives. ...And it is only when we grant ourselves mercy that we can extend this mercy to others.
”
”
Mary Pipher (Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing As We Age)
“
I keeled over sideways.
The world turned fluffy, bleached of all color. Nothing hurt anymore.
I was dimly aware of Diana’s face hovering over me, Meg and Hazel peering over the goddess’s shoulders.
“He’s almost gone,” Diana said.
Then I was gone. My mind slipped into a pool of cold, slimy darkness.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” My sister’s voice woke me rudely.
I’d been so comfortable, so nonexistent.
Life surged back into me—cold, sharp, and unfairly painful. Diana’s face came into focus. She looked annoyed, which seemed on-brand for her.
As for me, I felt surprisingly good. The pain in my gut was gone. My muscles didn’t burn. I could breathe without difficulty. I must have slept for decades.
“H-how long was I out?” I croaked.
“Roughly three seconds,” she said. “Now, get up, drama queen.”
She helped me to my feet. I felt a bit unsteady, but I was delighted to find that my legs had any strength at all. My skin was no longer gray. The lines of infection were gone. The Arrow of Dodona was still in my hand, though he had gone silent, perhaps in awe of the goddess’s presence. Or perhaps he was still trying to get the taste of “Sweet Caroline” out of his imaginary mouth.
I beamed at my sister. It was so good to see her disapproving I-can’t-believe-you’re-my-brother frown again. “I love you,” I said, my voice hoarse with emotion.
She blinked, clearly unsure what to do with this information. “You really have changed.”
“I missed you!”
“Y-yes, well. I’m here now. Even Dad couldn’t argue with a Sibylline invocation from Temple Hill.”
“It worked, then!” I grinned at Hazel and Meg. “It worked!”
“Yeah,” Meg said wearily. “Hi, Artemis.”
“Diana,” my sister corrected. “But hello, Meg.” For her, my sister had a smile. “You’ve done well, young warrior.”
Meg blushed. She kicked at the scattered zombie dust on the floor and shrugged. “Eh.”
I checked my stomach, which was easy, since my shirt was in tatters. The bandages had vanished, along with the festering wound. Only a thin white scar remained. “So…I’m healed?” My flab told me she hadn’t restored me to my godly self. Nah, that would have been too much to expect.
Diana raised an eyebrow. “Well, I’m not the goddess of healing, but I’m still a goddess. I think I can take care of my little brother’s boo-boos.”
“Little brother?”
She smirked.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Tyrant’s Tomb (The Trials of Apollo, #4))
“
When girls like us fall, there’s no one to catch us. Least of all that boy for whom we’ve taken the fall.
We’re the girls with secrets and witchy hearts. We’re the girls who listen to sad songs. Who slow dance to them with tears streaming down our faces, even as a smile lingers on our lips. Who cry in our pillows at night and who ride our sunshine-yellow bicycle along the empty, desolate, miserable places, where no one goes.
”
”
Saffron A. Kent (My Darling Arrow (St. Mary’s Rebels, #1))
“
And then I wondered if as soon as he came to like me he would sink into ordinariness, and if as soon as he came to love me I would find fault after fault, the way I did with Buddy Willard and the boys before him.... The last thing I wanted was infinite security and to be the place an arrow shoots from. I wanted change and excitement and to shoot off in all directions myself, like the coloured arrows from a Fourth of July rocket.
”
”
Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar)
“
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bow from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrow may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.19
”
”
M. Scott Peck (The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth)
“
In order to penetrate the subject matter there must be, in addition, the love of teaching and the love of learning, the give and take between teacher and student, example and imitation. Beyond the technical problem, there is a personal encounter similar to that of a savage training his sons in the use of bow and arrow, or of an animal guiding its young. I am firmly convinced that one of the high orders of the universe is a pedagogical order.
”
”
Ernst Jünger (The Glass Bees)
“
I am a Magyr. I could crush your skull with my hands and drink this rat town under the table afterwards. And if I wanted to kill myself a passel of sailors, I'd bloody well do it with cannon, saber, and a fist in the teeth, not by batting my damn eyelashes. You'd be wise to remember it, Maggie, my love, and if we see a mermaid on our jaunt across the high seas, the best thing for all of us would be to let Sheapshank here put an arrow through her giggling head.
”
”
Catherynne M. Valente (In the Night Garden (The Orphan's Tales, #1))
“
At this moment, when each of us must fit an arrow to his bow and enter the lists anew, to
reconquer, within history and in spite of it, that which he owns already, the thin yield of his fields, the
brief love of this earth, at this moment when at last a man is born, it is time to forsake our age and its
adolescent furies. The bow bends; the wood complains. At the moment of supreme tension, there will leap
into flight an unswerving arrow, a shaft that is inflexible and free.
”
”
Albert Camus (The Rebel)
“
What is it about the moment you fall in love? haw can such a small measure of time contain such enormity? I suddenly realize why people believe in deja vu, why people believe they've lived past lives, because there is no way the years I've spent on this earth could possibly encapsulate what I'm feeling. The moment when you fall in love feel like it has centuries behind it, generations -- all of them rearranging themselves so that this precise, remarkable intersection could happen. In your heart, in your bones, no matter how silly you know it is, you feel that everything has been leading to this, all the secret arrows were pointing here, the universe and time itself crafted this long ago, and you are just now realizing it, you are just now arriving at the place you were always meant to be.
”
”
David Levithan (Every Day (Every Day, #1))
“
Ah, you pitiful, pitiful creatures! Beautiful family! Nobler far than stupid men..." he cried softly to himself. What was he doing here with his arrow? Cornering these creatures? Armor--an armor to brag about! Save his dignity before that armor-maker because of a promise? Foolish...foolish! If the old man jeered at him, why should it matter anymore; a common suit of armor would do as well! Armor did not make a man, nor did it signify valor.
"Dumb creatures that you are, how magnificent! Sorrow, love--parental love incarnate! Were I that fox--what if Tokiko and Shigemori were trapped like this? Even the beast can rise above itself--could I as much?
”
”
Eiji Yoshikawa
“
Kahlil Gibran addresses himself in what are perhaps the finest words ever written about child-raising: Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bow from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrow may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable. 19
”
”
M. Scott Peck (The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth)
“
She say, All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy, I had to fight my brothers. I had to fight my cousins and my uncles. A girl child ain't safe in a family of men. But I never thought I'd have to fight in my own house. She let out her breath. I loves Harpo, she say. God knows I do. But I'll kill him dead before I let him beat me. Now if you want a dead son-in-law you just keep on advising him like you doing. She put her hand on her hip. I used to hunt game with a bow and arrow, she say.
”
”
Alice Walker
“
All I really want is for someone to touch my mouth and mean it. I dance in dangerous fables, walk a woods with trees white as bone. It’s always winter and I’m always pressing my face against something warm with blood. I know how men love to give answers, tell stories. In this one, the girl dies in reverse – laughs then births an arrow from her chest. Later, I find my body bathed in glass; grey light swims lazy across my skin, a kind of honey. The clouds surrender then weep. In this endless soft of snow, I lack the patience to haunt. Instead, I hunt, every footstep a grief. I touch my hands to my lips. I leave nothing in my wake. I never ask the same question twice.
”
”
Yasmin Belkhyr
“
The world rising
can put an end
to anything:
the murder of children
whales
elephants
oceans.
Get up. Roll over
on that part
of you
that will not
welcome
recognize
encourage
or even see
our rise.
A compassionate roll:
we must be done
with cruelty
especially to ourselves,
to start again
beaming like the sun;
fresh.
But a roll that shows
we’ve reached the end
of polite moves
to repair and re-create the Earth,
and will press hard
on any parts of us
even those we have loved,
that insist
on remaining
oblivious
and
asleep.
”
”
Alice Walker (Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart)
“
The moon rose up that evening and shot her silver arrows at the house under the artu tree. The house was empty. Then the moon came across the sea and across the reef. She lit the lagoon to it's dark, dim heart. She lit the coral brains and sand spaces, and the fish casting their shadows on the sand and the coral. The keeper of the lagoon rose to greet her, and the fin of him broke her reflection on the mirror-like surface into a thousand glittering ripples. She saw the white staring ribs of the form on the reef. Then, peeping over the trees, she looked down into the valley, where the great stone idol had kept it's solitary vigil for five thousand years, perhaps, and more.
At this base, in his shadow, looking as if under his protection, lay two human beings, naked, clasped in each other's arms and fast asleep. One could scarcely pity his vigil, had it been marked sometimes through the years by such an incident as this. The thing had been conducted just as the birds conduct their love affairs. An affair absolutely natural, absolutely blameless and without sin. A marriage according to Nature, without feasts or guests, consummated with accidental cynicism under the shadow of a religion a thousand years dead.
”
”
Henry de Vere Stacpoole (The Blue Lagoon)
“
So often you blame God for the life you have, but you do not know what life you want. Certainly there is a dilemma here. The life you want may not be the life God wants for you. This is why the process must begin by loving God first. It is in loving God with all your heart and mind and soul that he begins to shape your passions. When God has your heart, you can trust your desires. His will is not a map; it is a match. He shows you the way by setting you on fire. You will know God’s desire for you by the fire in you! The fire in you will light the way.
”
”
Erwin Raphael McManus (The Last Arrow: Save Nothing for the Next Life)
“
Why do we need to be pardoned? What are we to be pardoned for? For not dying of hunger? For not accepting humbly the historic burden of disdain and abandonment? For having risen up in arms after we found all other paths closed? For not heeding the Chiapas penal code, one of the most absurd and repressive in history? For showing the rest of the country and the whole world that human dignity still exists even among the world’s poorest peoples? For having made careful preparations before we began our uprising? For bringing guns to battle instead of bows and arrows? For being Mexicans? For being mainly indigenous? For calling on the Mexican people to fight by whatever means possible for what belongs to them? For fighting for liberty, democracy and justice? For not following the example of previous guerrilla armies? For refusing to surrender? For refusing to sell ourselves out? Who should we ask for pardon, and who can grant it? Those who for many years glutted themselves at a table of plenty while we sat with death so often, we finally stopped fearing it? Those who filled our pockets and our souls with empty promises and words? Or should we ask pardon from the dead, our dead, who died “natural” deaths of “natural causes” like measles, whooping cough, break-bone fever, cholera, typhus, mononucleosis, tetanus, pneumonia, malaria and other lovely gastrointestinal and pulmonary diseases? Our dead, so very dead, so democratically dead from sorrow because no one did anything, because the dead, our dead, went just like that, with no one keeping count with no one saying, “Enough!” which would at least have granted some meaning to their deaths, a meaning no one ever sought for them, the dead of all times, who are now dying once again, but now in order to live? Should we ask pardon from those who deny us the right and capacity to govern ourselves? From those who don’t respect our customs and our culture and who ask us for identification papers and obedience to a law whose existence and moral basis we don’t accept? From those who oppress us, torture us, assassinate us, disappear us from the grave “crime” of wanting a piece of land, not too big and not too small, but just a simple piece of land on which we can grow something to fill our stomachs? Who should ask for pardon, and who can grant it?
”
”
Subcomandante Marcos
“
They say the heart is just a muscle. They say it plays absolutely no role in our emotions and that its use as a symbol for love is based on archaic theories of it being the seat of the soul or something ridiculous like that. But as I quietly listened to every word she was saying to me, as each syllable shot a sharp arrow through the phone and into my ear, I swear I felt like my entire chest would collapse in on itself. I knew this feeling. They say a heart can't really break because there's nothing to be broken. But see, I once had to leave everyone I loved, and it felt this same way.
”
”
John Corey Whaley (Noggin)
“
He felt that he had unwittingly stuck his hand into The Great Wasps' Nest of Life. As an image it stank. As a cameo of reality, he felt it was serviceable. He had stuck his hand through some rotted flashing in high summer and that hand and his whole arm had been consumed in holy, righteous fire, destroying conscious thought, making the concept of civilized behaviour obsolete. Could you be expected to behave as a thinking human being when your hand was being impaled on red-hot darning needles? Could you be expected to live in the love of your nearest and dearest when the brown, furious cloud rose out of the hole in the fabric of things (the fabric you thought was so innocent) and arrowed straight at you? Could you be held responsible for your own actions as you ran crazily about on the sloping roof seventy feet above he ground, not knowing where you were going, not remembering that your panicky, stumbling feet could lead you crashing and blundering right over the rain gutter and down to your death on the concrete seventy feet below? Jack didn't think you could. When you unwittingly stuck your hand into the wasps' nest, you hadn't made a covenant with the devil to give up your civilized self with its trappings of love and respect and honour. It just happened to you. Passively, with no say, you ceased to be a creature of the mind and became a creature of the nerve endings; from college-educated man to wailing ape in five seconds.
”
”
Stephen King
“
In a sec.......let's see if this will help. Once there was a bunny that was very sad
cause his ears were long and floppy and he stepped on them all the time."
"Like my shoelaces?"
"Yep, just like that. One day a beautiful fairy,,,,,,,,"
"The shoelace fairy?"
"Yep. She landed on the bunny's head and.........."
"Didn't that hurt? Does she have a wand?"
"Nope. She lifted up the bunny's ears and crossed them over like an x."
"I can cross my eyes.........look."
"Lovely. She put one ear through the bottom of the x and she pulled."
"She pulled the bunny's ears..........bad fairy."
"No, she was trying to tie his.........."
"Dan," Jordan laughed, "Stop. That is the worst thing I've ever heard."
"Well, it's better than the teepees and the arrows and crap," Danny huffed.
"Can I go see Andy now?"
"Yes, go see Andy and his Velcro sneakers," Jordan snickered. "We give up.
”
”
Grasshopper (Just Hit Send)
“
What makes my bed seem hard seeing it is soft?
Or why slips downe the Coverlet so oft?
Although the nights be long, I sleepe not tho,
My sides are sore with tumbling to and fro.
Were Love the cause, it's like I shoulde descry him,
Or lies he close, and shoots where none can spie him?
T'was so, he stroke me with a slender dart,
Tis cruell love turmoyles my captive hart.
Yeelding or striving doe we give him might,
Lets yeeld, a burden easly borne is light.
I saw a brandisht fire increase in strength,
Which being not shakt, I saw it die at length.
Yong oxen newly yokt are beaten more,
Then oxen which have drawne the plow before.
And rough jades mouths with stubburn bits are tome,
But managde horses heads are lightly borne,
Unwilling Lovers, love doth more torment,
Then such as in their bondage feele content.
Loe I confesse, I am thy captive I,
And hold my conquered hands for thee to tie.
What needes thou warre, I sue to thee for grace,
With armes to conquer armlesse men is base,
Yoke VenusDoves, put Mirtle on thy haire,
Vulcan will give thee Chariots rich and faire.
The people thee applauding thou shalte stand,
Guiding the harmelesse Pigeons with thy hand.
Yong men and women, shalt thou lead as thrall,
So will thy triumph seeme magnificall.
I lately cought, will have a new made wound,
And captive like be manacled and bound.
Good meaning, shame, and such as seeke loves wrack
Shall follow thee, their hands tied at their backe.
Thee all shall feare and worship as a King,
Jo, triumphing shall thy people sing.
Smooth speeches, feare and rage shall by thee ride,
Which troopes hath alwayes bin on Cupids side:
Thou with these souldiers conquerest gods and men,
Take these away, where is thy honor then?
Thy mother shall from heaven applaud this show,
And on their faces heapes of Roses strow.
With beautie of thy wings, thy faire haire guilded,
Ride golden Love in Chariots richly builded.
Unlesse I erre, full many shalt thou burne,
And give woundes infinite at everie turne.
In spite of thee, forth will thy arrowes flie,
A scorching flame burnes all the standers by.
So having conquerd Inde, was Bacchus hew,
Thee Pompous birds and him two tygres drew.
Then seeing I grace thy show in following thee,
Forbeare to hurt thy selfe in spoyling mee.
Beholde thy kinsmans Caesars prosperous bandes,
Who gardes the conquered with his conquering hands.
-- ELEGIA 2 (Quodprimo Amore correptus, in triumphum duci se a Cupidine patiatur)
”
”
Christopher Marlowe
“
I have something for you,” she said as she pulled his leather gloves from the sleeve of her prison tunic.
He stared at them. “How—”
“I got them from the discarded clothes. Before I made the climb.”
“Six stories in the dark.”
She nodded. She wasn’t going to wait for thanks. Not for the climb, or the gloves, or for anything ever again.
He pulled the gloves on slowly, and she watched his pale, vulnerable hands disappear beneath the leather. They were trickster hands—long, graceful fingers made for prying open locks, hiding coins, making things vanish.
“When we get back to Ketterdam, I’m taking my share, and I’m leaving the Dregs.”
He looked away. “You should. You were always too good for the Barrel.”
It was time to go. “Saints’ speed, Kaz.”
Kaz snagged her wrist. “Inej.” His gloved thumb moved over her pulse, traced the top of the feather tattoo. “If we don’t make it out, I want you to know…”
She waited. She felt hope rustling its wings inside her, ready to take flight at the right words from Kaz. She willed that hope into stillness. Those words would never come. The heart is an arrow.
She reached up and touched his cheek. She thought he might flinch again, even knock her hand away. In nearly two years of battling side by side with Kaz, of late-night scheming, impossible heists, clandestine errands, and harried meals of fried potatoes and hutspot gobbled down as they rushed from one place to another, this was the first time she had touched him skin to skin, without the barrier of gloves or coat or shirtsleeve. She let her hand cup his cheek. His skin was cool and damp from the rain. He stayed still, but she saw a tremor pass through him, as if he were waging a war with himself.
“If we don’t survive this night, I will die unafraid, Kaz. Can you say the same?”
His eyes were nearly black, the pupils dilated. She could see it took every last bit of his terrible will for him to remain still beneath her touch. And yet, he did not pull away. She knew it was the best he could offer. It was not enough.
She dropped her hand. He took a deep breath.
Kaz had said he didn’t want her prayers and she wouldn’t speak them, but she wished him safe nonetheless. She had her aim now, her heart had direction, and though it hurt to know that path led away from him, she could endure it.
”
”
Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1))
“
I had never deserved to be forgiven in the first place when I aas converted. I could do nothing to merit God's favour, His grace, His love. If all I had ever known was unmerited and undeserved grace, how could I then forfeit that which I never earned?... Was I too proud, in some strange, inverted way to humble myself to accept an unmerited forgiveness? I know that it was all of grace, yet my inner being wanted the right to do something to merit it. I was trying to work out my own salvation, to earn God's forgiveness, to prove the sincerity of my repentance...At last I knew that it was true. It was not based on my feeling or on my emotions. It was not dependent on my faith or my obedience. In no way could I merit or deserve it. He loved me. He knew me through and through, better than I knew myself, and yet still, He loved me. Christ died on Calvary to tell me that. Christ lives in Heaven, an unceasing intercessor on my behalf to make that love real to me in my experience.
”
”
Helen Roseveare (Living Sacrifice: Willing to be Whittled as an Arrow)
“
ON CHILDREN And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, “Speak to us of Children.” And he said: Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness; For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
”
”
Kahlil Gibran (The Prophet)
“
Diana was the goddess of the hunt and of all newborn creatures. Women prayed to her for happiness in marriage and childbirth, but her strength was so great that even the warlike Amazons worshipped her.
No man was worthy of her love, until powerful Orion won her affection. She was about to marry him, but her twin brother, Apollo, was angered that she had fallen in love. One day, Apollo saw Orion in the sea with only his head above the water. Apollo tricked Diana by challenging her to hit the mark bobbing in the distant sea. Diana shot her arrow with deadly aim. Later, the waves rolled dead Orion to shore.
Lamenting her fatal blunder, Diana placed Orion in the starry sky. Every night, she would lift her torch in the dark to see her beloved. Her light gave comfort to all, and soon she became known as a goddess of the moon.
It was whispered that if a girl-childwas born in the wilderness, delivered by the great goddess Diana, she would be known for her fierce protection of the innocent.
”
”
Lynne Ewing (Night Shade (Daughters of the Moon, #3))
“
I Cannot Remember
I once was a poet too (you gave life to my words), but now I cannot remember
Since I have forgotten you (my love!), my art too I cannot remember
Yesterday consulting my heart, I learned
that your hair, lips, mouth, I cannot remember
In the city of the intellect insanity is silence
But now your sweet, spontaneous voice, its fluidity, I cannot remember
Once I was unfamiliar with wrecking balls and ruins
But now the cultivation of gardens, I cannot remember
Now everyone shops at the store selling arrows and quivers
But neglects his own body, the client he cannot remember
Since time has brought me to a desert of such arid forgetfulness
Even your name may perish; I cannot remember
In this narrow state of being, lacking a country,
even the abandonment of my fellow countrymen, I cannot remember
”
”
Ahmad Faraz
“
Oh! My friend! My cup of poison!
Now I don’t remember world anymore as you are my world!
Then I will become unconscious as the first drop of poison,
Will be kissing my mind,
Oh! Now I can sing songs of Happiness,
My heart is getting stabbed with arrows!
Now I am hopeless without desire,
And now I have no remembrance of past pain,
Oh friend! You are not poison,
You are God’s nectar for me!
Now my heart will stop beating,
SO know more pain,
Now I shall leave!
But the illusion of nature,
My lover suddenly comes in front of me crying,
But I have decided that I shall become one with earth!
The world will not stop if I die!
NO one really loved me in reality,
It was illusion that contains possession,
Now my heart is tired and my soul is at peace,
No more cries, I leave body breathless,
It is a bitter truth that,
Man comes crying goes crying!
”
”
Mahiraj Jadeja (Love Forever)
“
Being wounded by one’s own arrow signifies, therefore, a state of introversion. What this means we already know: the libido sinks “into its own depths” (a favourite image of Nietzsche’s), and discovers in the darkness a substitute for the upper world it has abandoned—the world of memories (“Amidst a hundred memories”), the strongest and most influential of which are the earliest ones. It is the world of the child, the paradisal state of early infancy, from which we are driven out by the relentless law of time. In this subterranean kingdom slumber sweet feelings of home and the hopes of all that is to be. As Heinrich says of his miraculous work in Gerhart Hauptmann’s The Sunken Bell: It sings a song, long lost and long forgotten, A song of home, a childlike song of love, Born in the waters of some fairy well, Known to all mortals, and yet heard of none.54
”
”
C.G. Jung (Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 5: Symbols of Transformation (The Collected Works of C. G. Jung))
“
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
”
”
Kahlil Gibran (The Prophet)
“
It wasn't that Elain was cruel. She wasn't like Nesta, who had been born with a sneer on her face. Elain sometimes just... didn't grasp things. It wasn't meanness that kept her from offering to help; it simply never occurred to her that she might be capable of getting her hands dirty. I'd never been able to decide whether she actually didn't understand that we were truly poor or if she just refused to accept it. It still hadn't stopped me buying her seeds for the flower garden she tended in the milder months, whenever I could afford it.
And it hadn't stopped her from buying me three small tins of paint- red, yellow, and blue- during that same summer I'd had enough to buy the ash arrow. It was the only gift she'd ever given me, and out house still bore the marks of it, even if the paint was now fading and chipped: little vines and flowers along the windows and thresholds and edges of things, tiny curls of flame on the stones bordering the hearth. And spare minute I'd had that bountiful summer, I used to bedeck out house in colour, sometimes hiding clever decorations inside drawers, behind the threadbare curtains, underneath the chairs and table.
We hadn't had a summer that easy since.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1))
“
I read love stories and love poems. But I preferred books written about rulers. I read about a ruler whose female servants and concubines were as numerous as his army, and about another whose only interests in life were wine, women, and whipping his slaves. A third cared little for women, but enjoyed wars, killing, and torturing men. Another of these rulers loved food, money and hoarding riches without end. Still another was possessed with such an admiration for himself and his greatness that for him no one else in the land existed. There was also a ruler so obsessed with plots and conspiracies that he spent all his time distorting the facts of history and trying to fool his people.I discovered that all these rulers were men. What they had in common was an avaricious and distorted personality, a never-ending appetite for money, sex and unlimited power. They were men who sowed corruption on the earth, and plundered their peoples, men endowed with loud voices, a capacity for persuasion, for choosing sweet words and shooting poisoned arrows. Thus, the truth about them was revealed only after their deaths, and as a result I discovered that history tended to repeat itself with a foolish obstinacy.
”
”
Nawal El Saadawi (Woman at Point Zero)
“
Yes: the future bridegroom, Mr. Rochester himself, exercised over his intended a ceaseless surveillance: and it was from this sagacity—this guardedness of his—this perfect clear consciousness of his fair one's defects—this obvious absence of passion in his sentiments toward her, that my ever-torturing pain arose.
I saw he was going to marry her, for family, perhaps political reasons; because her rank and connections suited him; I felt he had not given her his love, and that her qualifications were ill adapted to win from him that treasure. This was the point—this was where the nerve was touched and teased—this was where the fever was sustained and fed: she could not charm him.
If she had managed the victory at once, and he had yielded and sincerely laid his heart at her feet, I should have covered my face, turned to the wall, and (figuratively) have died to them. If Miss Ingram had been a good and noble woman, endowed with force, fervor, kindness, sense, I should have had one vital struggle with two tigers—jealousy and despair: then, my heart torn out and devoured, I should have admired her—acknowledged her excellence, and been quiet for the rest of my days: and the more absolute her superiority, the deeper would have been my admiration—the more truly tranquil my quiescence. But as matters really stood, to watch Miss Ingram's efforts at fascinating Mr. Rochester; to witness their repeated failure—herself unconscious that they did fail; vainly fancying that each shaft launched, hit the mark, and infatuatedly pluming herself on success, when her pride and self-complacency repelled further and further what she wished to allure—to witness this, was to be at once under ceaseless excitation and ruthless restraint.
Because when she failed I saw how she might have succeeded. Arrows that continually glanced off from Mr. Rochester's breast and fell harmless at his feet might, I knew, if shot by a surer hand, have quivered keen in his proud heart—have called love into his stern eye and softness into his sardonic face; or, better still, without weapons a silent conquest might have been won.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)
“
Stop or I’ll kill him!” Sophia shouted at the angels as she tore out a fistful of arrows and leaped on Cam. Straddling him, she raised the silver shafts above his head.
His dark hair was matted and greasy. His hands were pale and trembling. Miss Sophia studied these details with a smirk.
“I do so love to see an angel die.” She cackled, holding the starshots high. “And such an arrogant one to kill.” She looked back down at Cam. “His death will be a beautiful thing to behold.”
“Go ahead.” Cam’s voice came for the first time, low and even. Luce nearly cried out when she heard him mutter: “I never asked for a happy ending.”
Luce had watched Sophia kill Penn with her bare hands and no remorse. It would not happen again. “No!” Luce shouted, struggling to break free from Daniel’s grip and dragging him with her into the chapel.
Slowly Miss Sophia craned her body around toward Luce and Daniel, clutching her fistful of starshots. Her eyes gleamed silver and her thin lips curled in a ghastly smile as Luce tugged Daniel forward, pulling against his relentless grip.
“We have to stop her, Daniel!”
“No, Luce, it’s too dangerous.”
“Oh, there you are, dear.” Miss Sophia beamed. “And Daniel Grigori! How nice. I’ve been waiting for you.” Then she winked and whipped the starshots over her head in a dense cluster aimed straight at Daniel and Luce.
”
”
Lauren Kate (Rapture (Fallen, #4))
“
I felt arrows of rage rising in me, fraught images spreading like bloodstains. There’s no point, I told myself. I reached for the ordinary decoys. It won’t get you anywhere. Think of the outcome you want and make sure you are moving towards it. Got to be practical. That’s what I always told the girls at school. There is so much in life that doesn’t matter, so many things that hold you back, hem you in and throw you off the scent of what’s important. Don’t get too bogged down in things that don’t count or things you cannot influence, and specifically don’t worry too much about making sure others know you’re in the right, because it so easily gets in the way of what you want and need. Become an expert at shrugging most of life off and free yourself for what really interests you. Hone your focus. Don’t bother with cleaning or tidiness beyond basic hygiene. Don’t make your appearance your primary concern. It will zap all your creativity. Be as self-sufficient as you dare. Sometimes you hold more strength when people don’t know what you think or feel, so be very careful whom you confide in. People can run with your difficulties when you least expect it, distort them, relish them even, and before you know it they’re not yours any more. Respect your privacy. And earn you own money or you’ll lack power. Take good care of your friendships, nurture them and they’ll strengthen you. Don’t turn frowning at the defects of other people into a hobby, delicious though it may be; it poisons you. Read every day—it is a practice that dignifies humans. Become a great reader of books and it will help you with reality, you’ll more easily grasp the truth of things and that will set you up for life. And don’t expose your brain to low-quality art forms because there will be a certain measure of pollution.
”
”
Susie Boyt (Loved and Missed)
“
I don’t like stories. I like moments. I like night better than day, moon better than sun, and here-and-now better than any sometime-later. I also like birds, mushrooms, the blues, peacock feathers, black cats, blue-eyed people, heraldry, astrology, criminal stories with lots of blood, and ancient epic poems where human heads can hold conversations with former friends and generally have a great time for years after they’ve been cut off. I like good food and good drink, sitting in a hot bath and lounging in a snowbank, wearing everything I own at once, and having everything I need close at hand. I like speed and that special ache in the pit of the stomach when you accelerate to the point of no return. I like to frighten and to be frightened, to amuse and to confound. I like writing on the walls so that no one can guess who did it, and drawing so that no one can guess what it is. I like doing my writing using a ladder or not using it, with a spray can or squeezing the paint from a tube. I like painting with a brush, with a sponge, and with my fingers. I like drawing the outline first and then filling it in completely, so that there’s no empty space left. I like letters as big as myself, but I like very small ones
as well. I like directing those who read them here and there by means of arrows, to other places where I also wrote something, but I also like to leave false trails and false signs. I like to tell fortunes with runes, bones, beans, lentils, and I Ching. Hot climates I like in the books and movies; in real life, rain and wind. Generally rain is what I like most of all. Spring rain, summer rain, autumn rain. Any rain, anytime. I like rereading things I’ve read a hundred times over. I like the sound of the harmonica, provided I’m the one playing it. I like lots of pockets, and clothes so worn that they become a kind of second skin instead of something that can be taken off. I like guardian amulets, but specific ones, so that each is responsible for something separate, not the all-inclusive kind. I like drying nettles and garlic and then adding them to anything and everything. I like covering my fingers with rubber cement and then peeling it off in front of everybody. I like sunglasses. Masks, umbrellas, old carved furniture, copper basins, checkered tablecloths, walnut shells, walnuts themselves, wicker chairs, yellowed postcards, gramophones, beads, the faces on triceratopses, yellow dandelions that are orange in the middle, melting snowmen whose carrot noses have fallen off, secret passages, fire-evacuation-route placards; I like fretting when in line at the doctor’s office, and screaming all of a sudden so that everyone around feels bad, and putting my arm or leg on someone when asleep, and scratching mosquito bites, and predicting the weather, keeping small objects behind my ears, receiving letters, playing solitaire, smoking someone else’s cigarettes, and rummaging in old papers and photographs. I like finding something lost so long ago that I’ve forgotten why I needed it in the first place. I like being really loved and being everyone’s last hope, I like my own hands—they are beautiful, I like driving somewhere in the dark using a flashlight, and turning something into something completely different, gluing and attaching things to each other and then being amazed that it actually worked. I like preparing things both edible and not, mixing drinks, tastes, and scents, curing friends of the hiccups by scaring them. There’s an awful lot of stuff I like.
”
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Mariam Petrosyan (Дом, в котором...)
“
The soul then, thus disguised and clad in the vesture of hope, is secure from its second foe, the world, for St. Paul calls hope the helmet of salvation.10 Now a helmet is armor which protects and covers the whole head, and has no opening except in one place, where the eyes may look through. Hope is such a helmet, for it covers all the senses of the head of the soul in such a way that they cannot be lost in worldly things, and leaves no part of them exposed to the arrows of the world. It has one loophole only through which the eyes may look upwards only; this is the ordinary work of hope, to direct the eyes of the soul to God alone; as David says, “My eyes are always to our Lord,”11 looking for succor nowhere else; as he says in another psalm, “As the eyes of the handmaid on the hands of her mistress, so are our eyes to our Lord God until He have mercy on us,”12 hoping in Him. 9. The green vesture of hope—for the soul is then ever looking upwards unto God, disregarding all else, and delighting only in Him—is so pleasing to the Beloved that the soul obtains from Him all it hopes for. This is why He tells the soul in the Canticle, “Thou hast wounded My heart in one of thine eyes.”13 It would have been useless for the soul, if it had not put on the green robe of hope in God, to claim such love, for it would not have succeeded, because that which influences the Beloved, and prevails, is persevering hope. It is in the vesture of hope that the soul goes forth disguised in this secret and dark night; seeing that it goes forth so detached from all possession, without any consolations, that it regards nothing, and that its sole anxiety is about God, putting its “mouth in the dust if so be there may be hope” in the words of Jeremiah quoted already.14 10.
”
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Juan de la Cruz (Dark Night of the Soul)
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His hands came to her wrists, squeezed reflexively, before he got quickly to his feet. "You're mixing things up." Panic arrowed straight into his heart. "I told you sex complicates things."
"Yes,you did.And of course since you're the only man I've been with, how could I knew the difference between sex and love? Then again, that doesn't take into account that I'm a smart and self-aware woman, and I know the reason you're the only man I've been with is that you're the only man I've loved.Brian..."
She stepped toward him, humor flashing into her eyes when he stepped back. "I've made up my mind.You know how stubborn I am."
"I train your father's horses."
"So what? My mother groomed them."
"That's a different matter."
"Why? Oh, because she's a woman.How foolish of me not to realize we can't possibly love each other, build a life with each other.Now if you owned Royal Meadows and I worked here, then it would be all right."
"Stop making me sound ridiculous."
"I can't." She spread her hands. "You are ridiculous.I love you anyway. Really, I tried to approach it sensibly.I like doing things in a structured order that makes a beeline for the goal.But..." She shrugged, smiled. "It just doesn't want to work that way with you.I look at you and my heart,well, it just insists on taking over.I love you so much,Brian. Can't you tell me? Can't you look at me and tell me?"
He skimmed his fingertips over the bruise high on her temple. He wanted to tend to it, to her. "If I did there'd be no going back."
"Coward." She watched the heat flash into his eyes,and thought how lovely it was to know him so well.
"You won't push me into a corner."
Now she laughed. "Watch me," she invited and proceeded to back him up against the steps. "I've figured a lot of things out today,Brian.You're scared of me-of what you feel for me. You were the one always pulling back when we were in public, shifting aside when I'd reach for you.It hurt me."
The idea quite simply appalled him. "I never meant to hurt you."
"No,you couldn't.How could I help but fall for you? A hard head and a soft heart.It's irresistable. Still, it did hurt. But I thought it was just the snob in you.I didn't realize it was nerves."
"I'm not a snob, or a coward."
"Put your arms around me.Kiss me. Tell me."
"Damn it." he grabbed her shoulders, then simply held on, unable to push her back or draw her in. "It was the first time I saw you, the first instant. You walked in the room and my heart stopped. Like it had been struck by lightning.I was fine until you walked into the room."
Her knees wanted to buckle.Hard head, soft heart, and here, suddenly, a staggering sweep of romance. "Why didn't you tell me? Why did you make me wait?"
"I thought I'd get over it."
"Get over it?" Her brow arched up. "Like a head cold?"
"Maybe." He set her aside, paced away to stare out at the hills.
Keeley closed her eyes, let the breeze ruffle her hair, cool her cheeks. When the calm descended, she opened her eyes and smiled. "A good strong head cold's tough to shake off.
”
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Nora Roberts (Irish Rebel (Irish Hearts, #3))
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Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist . . .” Lord, I put on the belt of truth. I choose a lifestyle of honesty and integrity. Show me the truths I so desperately need today. Expose the lies I’m not even aware that I’m believing. “. . . with the breastplate of righteousness in place . . .” And yes, Lord, I wear your righteousness today against all condemnation and corruption. Fit me with your holiness and purity—defend me from all assaults against my heart. “. . . and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace . . .” I do choose to live for the gospel at any moment. Show me where the larger story is unfolding and keep me from being so lax that I think the most important thing today is the soap operas of this world. “In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one . . .” Jesus, I lift against every lie and every assault the confidence that you are good, and that you have good in store for me. Nothing is coming today that can overcome me because you are with me. “. . . Take the helmet of salvation . . .” Thank you, Lord, for my salvation. I receive it in a new and fresh way from you and I declare that nothing can separate me now from the love of Christ and the place I shall ever have in your kingdom. “. . . and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God . . .” Holy Spirit, show me specifically today the truths of the Word of God that I will need to counter the assaults and the snares of the Enemy. Bring them to mind throughout the day. “. . . And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.” Finally, Holy Spirit, I agree to walk in step with you in everything—in all prayer as my spirit communes with you throughout the day. (6:13-18)
”
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John Eldredge (Wild at Heart Revised and Updated: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul)